The astronomically huge and long awaited Grand Theft Auto IV expansion, The Lost and Damned, has just gone live on Xbox Live!

The DLC should already be appearing on the Games Marketplace to download for most 360 users. If it’s yet to appear in your region, fear not though!

You can access the download by going to Marketplace on Xbox.com, and buy it from there. You will then be able to download it by going to your Active Downloads on your 360 dashboard.

The Lost and Damned will set you back 1600 MS Point, and 1.78GB of your HDD, and has an estimated 10 – 15 hours of gameplay packed away in it. Considering the scope of this content, that’s a generous price.

Microsoft also added new “biker” related avatar clothing earlier to coincide with the launch of the 360 exclusive content. You’ll find a full list of the new clothing under the cut.

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Rockstar development boss Jeronimo Barrera has stated in a recent interview why he views the upcoming GTA IV expansion pack The Lost and Damned, which releases tomorrow, as a full game in its own right.

“There’s nothing ever been out like it,” Barrera told Major Nelson in the review, “We’ve done a full game in my opinion, in terms of the production quality and the new gameplay mechanics. We’ve literally reached the maximum memory size that we can do for DLC with Microsoft. You’re going to get a lot of game.”

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The NPD, GfK Chart-Track and Enterbrain charts have been combined together the video game software sales for their respective regions to put together an accurate list of the top 5 games of 2008.

Mario Kart Wii has been declared as the top selling game of 2008, which Wii Fit being a depressing entry at number 2. Number 3 and 4 bring a brighter light to the eyes of us traditional gamers, with GTAIV and Super Smash Bros. Brawl taking up those slots.

Games sales across the “world’s three largest games markets” saw an 11% increase overall, totalling somewhere in the region of 409.9 million units last year.

That… a lot of games.

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Speaking to the press in a conference call earlier to this, in relation to its full-year financial results, Take-Two Interactive executives revealed that the GTA franchise has been responsible for nearly half of the company’s revenue this year.

Like that really surprises anyone.

The franchise took in over $710 million for the company this year, of the entire revenue total of $1,537.5 million for fiscal 2008.

All in all, that accounts for roughly 60% of Take-Two Interactive’s total publishing sales for the last 12 months.

Impressive? Just a bit.

Spike TV has had gone into overload with its debut trailers this year, and the next big one on the list is the trailer for the 360 exclusive Grand Theft Auto IV expansion, The Lost and Damned.

In it, we get a quick look of the characters and face we will be introduced to in the new chapter, and lots of lots of shots of leather jackets and motorbikes.

The video is under the cut, as usual.

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Microsoft has just posted three new screenshots for the upcoming 360 exclusive Grand Theft Auto IV downloadable content, The Lost and Damned over on its website.

Alongside it is a blurb confirming information we pretty much already know, but here it is anyway.

Developed by series creator Rockstar North and set in Liberty City, Grand Theft Auto IV™ The Lost and Damned™ features a new main character, Johnny Klebitz, and plot that intersects with the storyline of Grand Theft Auto IV; new missions that offer an entirely fresh way to explore Liberty City with new multiplayer modes, weapons and vehicles; and a diverse soundtrack with additional music—all with the incredible production values that are the trademarks of Grand Theft Auto.

Rockstar Games have just released the first screenshots of the recently announced GTA IV DLC content pack “The Lost and Damned”, the first of two Xbox 360 exclusive episodes of content for the game.

As will come as no surprise to anyone, they feature lots of men in leather, riding motor-cycles and generally trying to look all tough.

Enjoy.

Officially detailed today, the Xbox 360 exclusive GTA IV downloadable content, entitled “The Lost and Damned”, will include an entirely new side-story, new multiplayer modes, new weapons and vehicles… and even a new radio station.

“The Lost and Damned” will be the first of two episodes, and it will launch on the Xbox Live Marketplace on February 17. The side story will put you in control of Johnny Klebitz, a member of Liberty City biker gang The Lost, and will intersect with the main storyline in places.

“Making these episodes has enabled us to expand the narrative and the experience of interacting with a game world in really innovative ways,” said Rockstar’s Sam Houser. “We hope fans of the game enjoy the new way of experiencing life in Liberty City contained in this first episode.”

Well, when they said they were planning big, they certainly weren’t kidding.

This is what downloadable content should be.

A week ago I took a trip to Las Vegas for the weekend. But let’s just say I ran across some well-known gaming icons…

This Grand Theft Auto IV ad was plastered on one of the local buses in Las Vegas, The Deuce. Video game, as well as electronics ads, are popular in big cities like Las Vegas or Chicago (where Apple displayed ads for the MacBook Air).

This giant PSP was on the side of one of the buildings in The Las Vegas Strip. From what I saw over a few minutes, it looped through advertisments for recent PSP and PS3 ads, including Echochrome, PlayStation Home, God of War: Chains of Olympus, and LittleBigPlanet, among others.

More photos of the giant PSP (the bus moved too fast to get any other clearer images of the GTA IV ad) can be found here.

According to Gamespot, Take-Two boss Strauss Zelnick said at the BMO Capital Market 2008 Interactive Entertainment Conference (ain’t that a mouthful?) to that the release date of GTA: Chinatown Wars has been pushed back into the “second fiscal quarter”, meaning somewhere between February to April of next year.

No reason was given for the delay.

But that’s not all. From the story:

Zelnick said the publisher was aiming to have [GTA IV's 360 DLC] available at the end of the fiscal first quarter (which runs November through January), although he noted it might move into the second quarter alongside Chinatown Wars. Regardless, the downloadable content is “close to completed.”

Dan Houser has told Variety today that he’s unsure whether or not the Xbox 360 version of GTA IV will get its exclusive DLC this year, and that Rockstar’s itself is being wary of hyping the content too much in case people think “it’s this enormous thing that it can never be.”

“I’m not sure,” he said when asked if it would hit in 2008.

“It’s going well. But we don’t know a date. We hope to be announcing that in the next few weeks. We’re still figuring out a few things. We’re more focused on quality than dates, always have been. But the development is going really good. It’s shaping up to be something we’re very proud of. That was our goal.”

Houser also added that the nature of the content, in terms of the full game itself will be outlined before it releases. Many are expected an extensive side-story and a new location, which would be an epic amount of extra content in itself. With the length of time this is taking to develop, it’s obvious that it’s not going to be something small.

“We want to give people a rough idea so their expectations are roughly in line. We don’t want them to imagine it’s this enormous thing that it can never be.”

“Doing a big digital launch is something we’ve never done before. It’s virgin territory, but at the same time, we feel very exposed because there’s no case history. No one ever came out with major DLC for a major game like this before. It’s new territory for everybody. We’re making it up a little bit as we go along. That’s always fun, but it makes you nervous.”

Take your time Rockstar. We can wait. We have no doubts that it’s going to be amazing, whenever it’s finally released.

Media Create has just updated its weekly sales charts, and there’s a few some interesting figures and surprises out of them this week.

Despite the lukewarm reception from the public, the DSi has managed to sell 172,000 of Nintendo’s initial 200,000 unit shipment. Not bad, but only time will tell if it can keep up that kind of selling pace

The PS3 had an amazing week in contrary to its usually poor performance in Japan, apparently thanks to the release of GTA IV in the region. Sales were up from 3,931 last week to over 39,500 units this week.

Full sales figures after the cut.

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